Monday, June 14, 2010

We are Adopting - The Background to our Story

We wanted to let you know that we are pregnant with a chinese toddler!!! :) Although we are early in the process, the Lord has shown himself to me more through this process than in my entire life, and we wanted to share the story of His faithfulness with you.

God started growing adoption in our hearts at the beginning of our marriage, and we have been blessed to know many adoptive families. We started praying through adopting our third child about a year ago and were sure six months ago that now was the time for us to begin the adoption process. There are many different avenues of adoption, and it was very overwhelming at first. We were paralyzed by the options and were encouraged by many people that the first step was to decide what type of child we would be pursuing (what gender, what nationality, etc). The problem with this is that we had already prayed, and we were open to the next child God had for us whoever that child might be. Since it is difficult to pursue an agency before you know these things, we decided to meet with the children's pastor at our church to seek some godly wisdom and clarity on our next step. After discussing our situation with our pastor, he gave us the name of a sweet lady in our church to talk to. I eagerly called Suzanne (the sweet lady), and she was very willing to meet with me but was perplexed as to why our children's pastor had recommended her rather than an adoptive family. They were interim-care foster parents for babies waiting on their forever families, but had never adopted. We decided to meet anyway, and I am so glad that we did because God had big plans for our meeting.

As we shared our stories, we connected on so many levels and had such a wonderful time getting to know each other while sharing our hearts for caring for orphans. I shared with her our adoption journey, our openness to the baby God would have us adopt, my background in pediatric physical therapy, etc. At the end of our conversation she told me she felt the Lord nudging her to tell us about a Chinese little girl with special needs that had been in her prayers for the past 8 months!! At that moment, I felt as though our meeting made total sense, and I could see God's timing all over it. There are so many things about our meeting that are divine to me..the timing of our meeting, our inability to pick an agency, our openess to any child, my background in PT, our earlier desire to adopt from China. It immediately felt like a very large hug from my Savior who cares so deeply for me. Suzanne and her family were sure that they were to advocate for this little girl in some way but weren't sure what form that would take. They had been thinking about adopting her but didn't have a clear answer from God yet. Both of our families, at that point, began openly and honestly praying for God's leading and clear direction, and we recently found out that they felt as though we were to be her forever family. Since that time we have been pursuing her with all our might. The Lord has been so sweet and has affirmed us on each step in the process. There are so many stories of His faithfulness that we can't share online.

At this point we cannot speak of our little girl by name or show her picture on any online public forum (our blog, facebook). We apologize, but we will communicate more details as soon as we can. In the meantime, here is how you can pray.

Please pray:

1. That her file would be released from China quickly so we could be officially matched with her.2. That we would have discernment in how to raise the money to bring her home. We will need about $23,000 total. We weren't expecting the process to go this quickly ,however, and we will have over $3000 due in the next couple of weeks for our immigration fees and to start our dossier process. . .ahhhh!!! 3. For our hearts as we yearn to have our baby girl safe and sound home with her forever family that loves her so much!!!

Thank you so much for loving us and for being a part of this journey as we eagerly wait for our little girl!!

About Me

ON THE JOURNEY WITH US

Followers

Phipps Adoption - PayPal Giving Option

I CHOOSE YOU! - Tax-Deductible Giving Option

An account has been set-up at our church called the "I Choose You-Phipps" fund. It is 100% tax-deductible!! You can send a check (write it to Fellowship Bible Church and write in the memo line...."I Choose You- Phipps") to: